Nicole Taylor, one third of the country trio Taylor Red, died on September 28 at her home in Nashville, Tennessee, at 35. The Nicole Taylor death was announced on Monday, November 2, by her identical triplet sisters and bandmates, Natalie and Nika Taylor, in a video posted to the group’s official YouTube channel.
Nicole had faced breast cancer since a 2022 diagnosis that her sisters described as aggressive stage three disease. She was the eldest of the three sisters by one minute over Natalie and two minutes over Nika, and the singer her sisters called their fearless leader, in a trio that built an audience of more than 16 million YouTube subscribers and more than 13 million TikTok followers on sibling harmonies and constant, joyful posting.
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Nicole Taylor Death Announced By Her Sisters
The announcement came in a Taylor Red video titled “We Lost Our Triplet Sister Nicole,” posted on November 2, more than a month after Nicole died. Opening the video, Natalie and Nika said they were “shocked and heartbroken to announce the passing of our sister Nicole Taylor.” They explained that the family had held on to a different ending for four years. “We thought she would be here sharing her story of earthly healing. Instead, we are sharing her story of heavenly healing, and she is at peace and no longer suffering, so we are thankful for that,” Natalie said.
In a written memorial on the group’s official website, the sisters put the loss in plainer words. “Nicole, the oldest of us three sisters, will be greatly missed. She was our leader and our best friend. We are heartbroken, but we know she is in Heaven and will see her again,” they wrote. The family has already held a private funeral service, and a memorial page on the Taylor Red site invites fans who want to honour Nicole to donate to Samaritan’s Purse, one of her favourite charities. In the announcement, the sisters also thanked the doctors and nurses who cared for Nicole and the fans whose prayers carried the family through her illness.
A Cancer Fight That Began In 2022
Nicole Helen Taylor was born on March 18, 1991, in Mississippi, minutes ahead of her sisters. She was diagnosed in 2022 with what Nika called a very aggressive stage three breast cancer, the first serious illness the family had faced. Her first response, her sisters recalled, was that “God is going to use this for his glory.” Family and friends began praying for her every day at 3:18 p.m., a time chosen for the triplets’ March 18 birthday.
The first round of treatment worked. After chemotherapy, Nicole was told there was no evidence of disease, and she rang the bell that marks the end of a treatment course. Nine months later the cancer returned, and it advanced to stage four. Doctors told her she had about three months to live, and she lived roughly another year beyond that prognosis. Through treatment she kept working, kept travelling and, remarkably, kept doing CrossFit workouts during chemotherapy. “She tried not to live in fear,” Natalie said in the announcement. Her sisters also shared a recording of Nicole giving her Christian testimony, so fans could hear the faith that sustained her in her own voice.
From Red Roots To Taylor Red
The three sisters grew up in Hurley, Mississippi, surrounded by music, and had formed a band by the time they were 10 years old, playing, in Nicole’s own earlier words, “at every little fish fry in town.” Together they learned guitar, banjo, fiddle and mandolin, building a sound that blended country, bluegrass and Southern gospel around harmonies only identical triplets can make. Nicole learned the drums first, often took the banjo, and was, in her sisters’ description, the rocker of the group, the edgy one who spoke up first and spoke for all three.
Performing first as Red Roots, the sisters released the albums Red Roots, The Middle of Nowhere in 2012 and Triplicity in 2014. They signed with Nashville label Inpop Records in 2015 and rebranded as Taylor Red in 2018. By then they were already tireless on the road, and across their career the trio played more than 1,000 shows in the United States and internationally, including dates in Canada and Norway, and shared stages with acts including Charlie Daniels, Amy Grant, Diamond Rio and Josh Turner. National Sonic Drive-In commercials in 2020 and 2021 put their faces, and their harmonies, in front of an audience far beyond country radio.
Country Money And An Audience In The Millions
The bigger stage turned out to be the phone screen. Taylor Red’s playful videos and close harmonies made the sisters viral fixtures on TikTok, and Variety named them one of six all female groups taking off on the platform. Their March 2021 single “Country Money,” written by J.T. Harding, Matt Jenkins and Andrew DeRoberts and produced by Ilya Toshinsky, converted that attention into a music story: it passed 100,000 streams in under a month, landed on Spotify’s Wild Country, New Music Nashville and Fresh Finds playlists, and was featured among the best new songs on Apple Music’s country homepage. Across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat, the trio’s following grew past 30 million, and brand work and festival invitations followed the numbers.
In March 2025 the sisters attended Opry 100: A Live Celebration, the Grand Ole Opry’s centennial show in Nashville, a milestone night for a trio that had started at Mississippi fish fries. That arc is what makes this loss land so hard for the group’s audience: Taylor Red was not a legacy act looking back, but three 35 year old sisters still in the middle of their rise, whose oldest member led them on stage and online. Natalie and Nika now carry the group forward without the voice that sat at the top of the harmony and, by their account, at the front of every decision. Every Taylor Red performance that survives online still holds all three sisters in frame, and that, for the millions who found them there, is how Nicole Taylor will keep being heard.
